Water Access, Sanitation & Hygiene (WASH) Project

November was an eventful month for Mpoma! Earlier this month the Mpoma team went on another outreach to the villages Waluga and Katogoo. The goal of these trips was to share the next steps in our WASH program for the year. Some major focuses are community empowerment plus the importance of latrine covers and permanent handwashing stations. These current goals address several points of imporvement that we discovered through our survey research over the past two summers.

The Mpoma team also recently shared the formal research paper this year's GROW team wrote with Nama sub-county government officials (the Chair-person and Community Development Officer). They are very excited about our findings!

Mpoma also visited Kyampisi, a prospective WASH village, to do a massive community mobilization. This step is a vital part of the WASH project as it brings all village members on board before building a new water source. Additionally, doing so educates the community on the various responsibilites required to properly maintain the borehole.

Lastly, our new sanitary pad project at Johnson Nkosi Primary school is doing well! The permanent structure built to wash and dry reusable pads is being used by the girls and there have been no problems so far.

June has been an eventful month for Mpoma and GlobeMed at UCLA! The 2016 GROW team arrived in the village Lukojjo (where Johnson Nkosi Primary School is located) on June 13th. After two long plane rides and one 3-hour car ride through Entebbe and Kampala we finally arrived. We were immediately welcomed by the community and have met countless amazing people and made so many new friends. Apart from successfully acclimating into our new surroundings we have accomplished so much!

Early in our trip we visited the Nama Sub-County headquarters to inform local government officials about our fieldwork surveying households about various sanitation and hygiene criteria in person and via a formal letter. We informed them exactly how we would conduct surveys while maintaining confidentiality, and the number of villages and households we planned to visit. We also wrote up a formal letter informing headquarters that we will be have our Biannual Meeting in a few weeks where we will train water user committees and share the data from our outreaches (fieldwork).

So far we have visited 4 water sources in the villages Waluga, Lukalu, and Buyki. This year we decided to take GIS (Geographic Information System) points at every house we visit so we can accurately measure the distance between the water source and each household. These points will also be helpful for next year so we know if we visited a house the year before! Additionally, we’ve identified two possible villages to implement new WASH programs in that can also serve as controls for our research. We’re almost halfway done with our stay in Uganda but I can’t wait to see what else we will accomplish!

As the school year winds down our GROW team continues to prepare for their 7 week stay in Mukono, Uganda: flights have been booked, preparations have been made, extra granola bars have been bought!

Mpoma has continued to make great progress on our WASH project! Earlier this month the team went on an outreach to Namatogonya. The trip was overall very positive and open defecation was discussed. On a more recent outreach, the Mpoma team informed us that one of the new villages we sponsor is in the process of constructing a new bore hole. Currently, the hole is over 82 feet deep!

Overall, we are ecstatic about the progress Mpoma has made so far and our GROW members can’t wait to meet the Mpoma team in person!

In the past month, the Mpoma team had begun conducting WASH trainings at our new partner school-- St. Jude Secondary School in Katoogo village! This is the first secondary school Mpoma has worked with, and we are quite excited to be widening our reach.

One of the Water User Committees in Waluga village has been making great progress with their WASH trainings! This week they have had their second community-wide WASH training in two months, and the results are already evident. In the past month, five new handwashing stations have been set up throughout the community, latrines have become noticeably cleaner, and village members have been better about cleaning their water vessels.

The Mpoma team has also found a new site for a water source-- the location is the site of Mpoma’s new poultry project, funded by a grant from GoCampaign. The project is located at the owner of Mpoma’s house, where most boarding students spend their vacations from school. This water source will both help the project’s success (the proceeds of which go toward paying Johnson Nkosi’s teacher salaries), as well as serve more rural community members.

Last but not least, the GROW team has officially booked their flights to Uganda. They will be leaving on June 11th to begin their internships at Mpoma!

As we begin Spring quarter, we are beginning the final push in our fundraising efforts in order to make our commitment. It’s a lot of work, but we are confident we will get there!

Over the past few weeks, Peter Wandera, the manager of Mpoma Community HIV/AIDS Initiative, finished and sent out this year’s Annual Report. The document includes updates and highlights from 2015 of Mpoma’s various projects, including Johnson Nkosi Memorial Primary School and our WASH project. This year’s Annual Report also delineates a few key themes that the WASH project will be focusing on in 2016:

1. Hand-washing with soap

2. Safe feces disposal (with emphasis on the reduction of open defecation)

3. Safe drinking water (using the Safe Water Chain)

4. Personal hygiene for boys and girls (with emphasis on menstrual hygiene for the girls)

While these themes have always been central to the WASH project, this year we are really working to actively promote behavioral change, rather than taking a more passive educational approach.

Another exciting announcement from February: our new GROW team has officially begun training for their on-site work this summer! They attended a training institute hosted by the GlobeMed Global Headquarters in Chicago, and are very excited to assume their new roles in our partnership.

Lastly, due to our GlobeMed chapter’s outstanding fundraising efforts, we managed to send Mpoma our first wire transfer last week! We send our annual commitment-- $11,000 for the 2015-2016 school year-- in two installments. In the past, our February installment has been around $4,000, but this year we sent Mpoma $6,988! This is an incredible accomplishment, and hopefully a good sign that we’ll actually surpass our commitment this year. On behalf of Mpoma and GlobeMed at UCLA, I would like to thank all of you donors, who helped us reach this goal!

As exciting as February was, there are many exciting things to look forward to in March! The Mpoma team has already drafted their work plan for the month, and GlobeMed has already begun planning fundraisers for Spring Quarter-- let’s keep the momentum going!

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